Walkthrough or easter eggs guide???

micheal_andreas_stahl · Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:55 am

Would it be possible to make a guide like that?

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:14 pm

Unless there're no real eastereggs in the game, it would be senseless. Walkthroughs are available if you google for (classic) Privateer solutions, because it's the same. The only useful thing I can think of by now is creating a bonus campaign walkthrough. Why don't you do it, Andy?

Melonhead · Post by **Melonhead** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:27 am

Are there Easter eggs? Or, are there easter eggs that most players could reasonably expect to run across, eventually?

I remember the original game had an uncharted jump point, which gave a shortcut across systems. Neat, but not something I'd spend hours trolling every system for.

On the other hand, if I knew there were fun things to find, randomly scattered around, it might motivate me to go check out that "dead end system" over in the corner. After a while, I stop checking the bartender rumors, because there's nothing new, and I stop hoping there will be a new kind of room at some base, or some undiscovered ship mod at a mysterious base.

So, to motivate myself, I've started figuring out (with a lot of help from the forum) how to do simple modding--the only problem is, anything I change isn't a surprise to me, and I haven't figured out how to code some changes without going direct to the *.system files, so they wouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone else. For example, how does the campaign hide Pentonville and then make it show up on the nav screen when the correct scenario is triggered?

I can think of about a dozen "interesting" player discoveries that would work along these lines.

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:24 am

If you want to hack yourself something really special, try the following:

Open your savegame with Wordpad

Search the Line where your position is (e.g. Gemini/Oxford)

Change the position to a place which only can be found in WCU (e.g. Sol/Sol, Kilrah/Kilrah)

Nice thing for anybody who hasn't trired WCU yet, although the outcome is quite strange...

micheal_andreas_stahl · Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:45 am

I would really put stuff like tractoring the stel tek fighter and drone, making profits via tractoring Kilrathi ships, good trade routes, etc.

Melonhead · Post by **Melonhead** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:55 am

Dilloh wrote:If you want to hack yourself something really special, try the following:
Open your savegame with Wordpad
Search the Line where your position is (e.g. Gemini/Oxford)
Change the position to a place which only can be found in WCU (e.g. Sol/Sol, Kilrah/Kilrah)
Nice thing for anybody who hasn't trired WCU yet, although the outcome is quite strange...

Now, just tell me where to buy a chart!

Or, an Exploration Service radar, so I can map it myself...hmm...

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:33 pm

http://www.wcnews.com/maps/

The first map is what you need to look at.

Melonhead · Post by **Melonhead** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 4:02 am

Wait, let me rephrase that. Now I need to buy a set of local charts. My nav computer doesn't show where in the system I am, and no planets or jump points appeared on my MFD. (Should they have? I recall early Privateer advice, "If you find you've jumped into a system for which you don't have a chart, you should immediately turn around and jump back out.")

micheal_andreas_stahl · Sun Dec 17, 2006 8:03 am

If you Hit shift m it willbring up a local map.

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:34 am

Strange... when I beamed to Sol/Sol (Attention with capital letters!) or Kilrah/Kilrah, I were on the map with all surrounding systems, and many planets were available. Didn't work with everything (e.g. Firekka). But from Sol, i jumped through the sector till I reached Gemini.

Do you use PR 1.2?

micheal_andreas_stahl · Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:09 pm

I have started upon the walk through for the side missions.

Melonhead · Post by **Melonhead** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:54 am

Well, this is strange. The first time I tried, I got no local map. Then I opened the jump point out of Aldeberan to Camelot by modifying the Aldeberan.system file, and it worked fine; local system map appeared in my nav computer, etc. (Obviously, no sector map was available, but figuring out how that is drawn by the VS engine will be a good research project--unless someone can answer it 2 sentences...)

I noticed some weirdness in Camelot. The mining base worked fine, but the "Overgrown" planet required me to manually fly to it. It looked just like Speke with z30's 1.16b patch--nice mountain landscape, no rooms, but tabs for all the room equivalents. Is this a default when there's no script for the planet type?

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:33 am

The planet surfaces can be found in /textures/planets. As you can see, the folder also contains some future drawings for WCU, not everything in the PR artwork folders is already used for PR. I also noticed that during browsing the py files. The game is ready for Borderworld, Landreich and Nephilim faction ships, although they're not part of PR. The planet is drawn using the .system file. z30 did this with Speke. He wanted it to look like New Detroit I suppose, but he only gave it the lights without the dark background. I'll also fix that within next canonHUDs. Here is an example about /sectors/Gemini/New_Detroit.system:

planet name="New_Detroit" file="planets/industrial.png" citylights="planets/industrial_light.png" radius="1200" gravity="20" x="-3000" y="-13000" day="3000">
<CityLights file="planets/industrial_light.png" wrapx="1" wrapy="1"/>

</planet>

I made the vital points bold. As you can see, planet textures are really easy to make or to alter!

The landscape is currently default for nothing - A compromise that the game doesn't crash if a planet is not loaded correctly for any reason. You'll also recognize this landscape at the end of the rf campaign.

Melonhead · Post by **Melonhead** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:48 pm

Whoops--should've been clearer on my "default" question...I was wondering about the default for the rooms arrangement, since it was a series of tabs. I didn't see a script for an "overgrown" planet, so I assume the default behavior is the series of tabs when no script is specified for that planet type.

Which leads to a related question...where does the game determine whether or not a guild is present? I see in the planet scripts how a guild is displayed or hidden, but I can't find where a guild's presence is actually defined.

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:56 pm

Okay, I understood now. The py files in /sectors/Gemini check if e.g. a guild is possible in a certain base, and if so, it generates one. You want to know where the game says: "Achilles in Troy has a Ship Dealer". To give a reply: I don't know but I'm currently looking for it. The answer will sooner or later appear in the Parallel Universe thread, so keep an eye on it. If you find it out for yourself, I'd be happy if you told me.

javier · Post by **javier** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:40 pm

You have the relevant code at the beginning of bases/guilds.py, in functions CanMerchantGuild() and CanMercenaryGuild().

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:02 pm

That's not the objective. Melonhead doesn't want to change the possibilites for all subplanets, but for certain planets. If you make changes here, it will affect e.g. all Pleasure bases. If you want a certain base to be changed, you will need to do that elsewhere. I haven't found the place yet, still I assume it to be in units.csv as I think I have terminated all other possibilities.

javier · Post by **javier** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:25 pm

And that's what the code in the bases folder do.
An example: The code in agricultural.py calls the method merchant_guild.Can(), who is a wrapper to guilds.CanMerchantGuild(), who returns true or false based on the name of the actual planet and system, using a simple hashing algorithm. If true, the corresponding merchant guild room is created for that planet.

There is also diferent scripts for specific places, as Perry or New Con, also in the bases folder.

Hope that this helps

micheal_andreas_stahl · Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:47 am

Here is the what i have writtin so far

Mission One

Employer: Destinee

System: Tingerhoff

Station: Munchen

Mission: Patrol 17-AR System, Destroy all Pirates

Opponents: The number of ships on this mission are random, though there are pirates at the jump point as soon as you jump into the system. There are usually one or two in the asteriod field.

Pay: 15,000 credits

Notes: Land on one of the refinery rigs in New Caledonia to refuel before you jump into 17-Ar.

I have to play it to get ambushes and where ships appear.

Dilloh · Post by **Dilloh** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:18 am

@javier: That's quite interesting. It's obvious how to force rooms for all base types. I didn't know that the stock bases' rooms are spawned by means of using an algorythm which is near to random.

@melonhead: This only leaves the possibility of transmuting single bases into own base types as I did with Speke. For an overview of the changes take a look at the files placed in canonHUDs1.3.

@Andy: That's good. Keep on the work!

micheal_andreas_stahl · Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:56 am

Thanks, I will do the others soon. Could Others please do differant branches and write them in the same format that i did so i can put them all together. I will acredit of course

micheal_andreas_stahl · Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:00 am

I can't wait for school. I will be able to do the walkthrough.

Draken Stark · Post by **Draken Stark** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:07 pm

ok I had just tried that Sol/Sol edit into a save file... ok... lmao... why id there a Microsoft planet that looks like saturn? Love the computer btw lol. After I saw this I was wondering about the background. Someone had obviously intended for this to be there lol, just makes me wonder about WCU and what other cool planets are there lol.

Melonhead · Post by **Melonhead** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:03 am

javier wrote:And that's what the code in the bases folder do.
An example: The code in agricultural.py calls the method merchant_guild.Can(), who is a wrapper to guilds.CanMerchantGuild(), who returns true or false based on the name of the actual planet and system, using a simple hashing algorithm. If true, the corresponding merchant guild room is created for that planet.

There is also diferent scripts for specific places, as Perry or New Con, also in the bases folder.

Hope that this helps

I see the method calls in the scripts. Where is the method code itself? I have downloaded the SVN, but can't find it. What is the algorithm? Does it include only the Privateer planet types, or all the VS engine types? Many questions come to mind, and quite a few ideas!

EDIT: Ah, I think I see it. The code is in guilds.py. This will be interesting to explore.

Draken Stark · Post by **Draken Stark** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:48 pm

Planet microsoft?!!? Anyone comment, please?

to find it, you have to create a new safe file and edit the top of it to:

Sol/Sol^82008.000000^lrfriendorfoe 38851046.153260 -28739518.808862 7149361.465422
0 mission data 14

and then make a new line after the line that says stardate
and paste this:

unit_to_dock_with 11 10.000000 77.000000 105.000000 99.000000 114.000000 111.000000 115.000000 111.000000 102.000000 116.000000 0.000000
visited_Sol/AlphaCentauri 1 0.000000
visited_Sol/BernardsStarBarnardsStar 1 0.000000
visited_Sol/Hilthros 1 0.000000
visited_Sol/Polaris 1 0.000000
visited_Sol/Sirius 1 0.000000
visited_Sol/Sol 1 1.000000
visited_Sol/Talos 1 0.000000
visited_Vega/Enyo 1 0.000000
visited_Vega/Proxima 1 0.000000

Open the game and load the save file...
then just turn around and you'll see the planet Microsoft >.<

EDIT: I put in the current ship as a missle as it's much faster... >.< but still it takes a while to get anywhere. better than the 500 from the stiletto (missle has 999).

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Walkthrough or easter eggs guide???

Walkthrough or easter eggs guide???

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